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10 Facts About Pirates

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The so-called “Golden Age of Piracy” lasted from about 1700 to 1725. During this time, thousands of people turned to piracy as a way to make a living. It is known as the “Golden Age” because conditions were perfect for pirates to flourish, and many of the individuals we associate with piracy, such as Blackbeard , “Calico Jack” Rackham , and “Black Bart” Roberts , were active during this time. Here are 10 things you maybe did not know about these ruthless sea bandits.

Pirates Rarely Buried Treasure

Some pirates buried treasure—most notably Captain William Kidd , who was at the time heading to New York to turn himself in and try to clear his name—but most never did. There were reasons for this. First of all, most of the loot gathered after a raid or attack was quickly divided up among the crew, who would rather spend it than bury it. Secondly, much of the “treasure” consisted of perishable goods like fabric, cocoa, food, or other things that would quickly become ruined if buried. The persistence of this legend is partly due to the popularity of the classic novel “Treasure Island,” which includes a hunt for buried pirate treasure .

Their Careers Didn't Last Long

Most pirates didn’t last very long. It was a tough line of work: many were killed or injured in battle or in fights amongst themselves, and medical facilities were usually non-existent. Even the most famous pirates , such as Blackbeard or Bartholomew Roberts, only were active in piracy for a couple of years. Roberts, who had a successful career as a pirate , was only active from 1719 to 1722.

They Had Rules and Regulations

If all you ever did was watch pirate movies, you’d think that being a pirate was easy: no rules other than to attack rich Spanish galleons, drink rum and swing around in the rigging. In reality, most pirate crews had a code that all members were required to acknowledge or sign. These rules included punishments for lying, stealing, or fighting on board. Pirates took these articles very seriously and punishments could be severe.

They Didn't Walk the Plank

Sorry, but this one is another myth. There are a couple of tales of pirates walking the plank well after the “Golden Age” ended, but little evidence to suggest that this was a common punishment before then. Not that pirates didn’t have effective punishments, mind you. Pirates who committed an infraction could be marooned on an island, whipped, or even “keel-hauled,” a vicious punishment in which a pirate was tied to a rope and then thrown overboard: he was then dragged down one side of the ship, under the vessel, over the keel and then back up the other side. Ship bottoms were usually covered with barnacles, which often resulted in very serious injuries in these situations.

A Good Pirate Ship Had Good Officers

A pirate ship was more than a boatload of thieves, killers, and rascals. A good ship was a well-run machine, with officers and a clear division of labor. The captain decided where to go and when, and which enemy ships to attack. He also had absolute command during battle. The quartermaster oversaw the ship’s operations and divided up the loot. There were other positions, including boatswain, carpenter, cooper, gunner, and navigator. Success on a pirate ship depended on these men carrying out their tasks efficiently and supervising those under their command.

The Pirates Didn't Limit Themselves to the Caribbean

The Caribbean was a great place for pirates: there was little or no law, there were plenty of uninhabited islands for hideouts, and many merchant vessels passed through. But the pirates of the “Golden Age” did not only work there. Many crossed the ocean to stage raids off the west coast of Africa, including the legendary “Black Bart” Roberts. Others sailed as far as the Indian Ocean to work the shipping lanes of southern Asia: it was in the Indian Ocean that Henry “Long Ben” Avery made one of the biggest scores ever: the rich treasure ship Ganj-i-Sawai.

There Were Women Pirates

It was extremely rare, but women did occasionally strap on a cutlass and pistol and take to the seas. The most famous examples were Anne Bonny and Mary Read , who sailed with “Calico Jack” Rackham in 1719. Bonny and Read dressed as men and reportedly fought just as well (or better than) their male counterparts. When Rackham and his crew were captured, Bonny and Read announced that they were both pregnant and thus avoided being hanged along with the others.

Piracy Was Better Than the Alternatives

Were pirates desperate men who could not find honest work? Not always: many pirates chose the life, and whenever a pirate stopped a merchant ship, it was not uncommon for a handful of merchant crewmen to join the pirates. This was because “honest” work at sea consisted of either merchant or military service, both of which featured abominable conditions. Sailors were underpaid, routinely cheated of their wages, beaten at the slightest provocation, and often forced to serve. It should surprise no one that many would willingly choose the more humane and democratic life on board a pirate vessel.

They Came From All Social Classes

Not all of the Golden Age pirates were uneducated thugs who took up piracy because they lacked a better way to make a living. Some of them came from higher social classes as well. William Kidd was a decorated sailor and very wealthy man when he set out in 1696 on a pirate-hunting mission: he turned pirate shortly thereafter. Another example is Major Stede Bonnet , who was a wealthy plantation owner in Barbados before he outfitted a ship and became a pirate in 1717: some say he did it to get away from a nagging wife.

Not All Pirates Were Criminals

During wartime, nations would often issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which allowed ships to attack enemy ports and vessels. Usually, these ships kept the plunder or shared some of it with the government that had issued the letter. These men were called “privateers,” and the most famous examples were Sir Francis Drake and Captain Henry Morgan . These Englishmen never attacked English ships, ports, or merchants and were considered great heroes by the common folk of England. The Spanish, however, considered them pirates.

• The Pirate Hunters
• The Golden Age of Piracy
• Real-Life Pirates of the Caribbean
• Famous Pirate Flags
• Understanding Pirate Treasure
• Biography of John 'Calico Jack' Rackham, Famed Pirate
• Pirates: Truth, Facts, Legends and Myths
• Famous Pirate Ships
• The History and Culture of Pirate Ships
• Facts About Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Fearsome Female Pirates
• Biography of Mary Read, English Pirate
• Pirate Crew: Positions and Duties
• The 10 Best Pirate Attacks in History
• 5 Successful Pirates of the "Golden Age of Pirates"
• Biography of Anne Bonny, Irish Pirate and Privateer
• Biography of 'Black Bart' Roberts, Highly Successful Pirate

The life and times of a pirate

What do pirates do.

Who became a pirate and what was life like for them? Step into the world of pirates in the classic age of piracy.

What is a pirate?

A pirate is a robber who travels by water. Though most pirates targeted ships, some also launched attacks on coastal towns.

We often think of pirates as swashbuckling and daring or evil and brutish, but in actual fact most of them were ordinary people who had been forced to turn to criminal activity to make ends meet. 

Where did pirates live? 

When on the high seas, any one who wasn't a captain would sleep out in the open, either in a hammock or on the floor. There were however, 'pirate havens'. Regions of the Indian Ocean and Madagascar were often safe places for pirates to stay, outside of the law and state governance. 

Did pirates bury their treasure?

Curator of World and Maritime History Robert Blyth takes on the  Curators Against the Clock  challenge to answer this question.

Who were the first pirates?

Pirates have existed since ancient times. They threatened the trading routes of ancient Greece, and seized cargoes of grain and olive oil from Roman ships. Later, the most famous and far-reaching pirates in early Middle Ages Europe were the Vikings.

The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas meant that the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus were divided between Spain and Portugal. They were ruled under Spanish and Catholic law.

Whilst this treaty meant that Spain and Portugal had agreed on the divide, the English didn’t think that the Pope had the right to seize land that they wanted. They decided to do something about it.

Under Queen Elizabeth I, Britain’s naval powers were growing. She sanctioned civilian sailors to attack Spanish ships, steal cargo and bring it back. Whilst this might have appeared to piracy to the outside world, to the British it made you a hero – such as Sir Francis Drake.

'Golden Age' of piracy

Thousands of pirates were active from 1650–1720. These years are sometimes known as a 'Golden Age' of piracy. Famous pirates from this period include Blackbeard (Edward Teach), Henry Morgan, William 'Captain' Kidd, 'Calico' Jack Rackham and Bartholomew Roberts.

During this time news of piracy reached the ears of both rich and poor. Ballads about topical events were sung on the streets. Newspapers could be freely read in coffee houses for the price of a dish of coffee. There was a spectrum of opinion about the exploits of the more notorious pirates. Published images often showed them as powerful and well dressed. 

Find out more about the most famous pirates

Learn more about the Golden Age of Piracy

Life on a pirate ship

We know the legend of swashbuckling, treasure chests and plank-walking, but what was a pirate's life actually like, and who chose to pursue this life of crime?

Some historians have described pirate ships as the original republics. Pirate captains had to be elected, with all decisions made upon the basis that they benefitted the crew. Any money that was captured was shared equally amongst the crew. pirate ships did not have the same hierarchical discipline as navy ships. Pirate crews tended to be less divided by national, religious and racial differences than communities were on land.

There was however also tough discipline on board. If you failed to follow the rules, you could be flogged, killed, or marooned. There were also long periods without food or medical supplies, and the only option was to go hungry. 

Where did pirates come from?

Although more British pirates were born in London than other seaports, there is no doubt that the most famous pirates were born elsewhere:

• Henry Morgan, Bartholomew Roberts and Howell Davis were Welsh
• Captain Kidd and John Gow were born in Scotland
• Avery was from Plymouth
• Blackbeard was from Bristol

What sort of booty did pirates seize?

The most precious prizes were chests of gold, silver and jewels. Coins were especially popular because pirate crews could share them out easily.

Emeralds and pearls were the commonest gems from America, providing rich plunder. However, pirates did not only seize precious cargoes like these. They also wanted things they could use, such as food, barrels of wine and brandy, sails, anchors and other spare equipment for their ships. Things as simple as flour and medicine were treasured steals. Often pirates were just trying to find the necessities of life. 

How did pirates attack other ships?

Pirate ships usually carried far more crew than ordinary ships of a similar size. This meant they could easily outnumber their victims. Pirates altered their ships so that they could carry far more cannon than merchant ships of the same size. Stories about pirate brutality meant that many of the most famous pirates had a terrifying reputation, and they advertised this by flying various gruesome flags including the 'Jolly Roger' with its picture of skull and crossbones. All these things together meant that victims often surrendered very quickly. Sometimes there was no fighting at all. It's likely that most victims of pirates were just thrown overboard rather than being made to ‘walk the plank’.

Who were the real pirates of the Caribbean?

How were pirates brought to justice?

Shop our selection of pirate-themed books

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Pirate in the Caribbean

While not as famous as other Caribbean pirates like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, French pirate Jean Hamlin ended up eluding capture on St. Thomas with the assistance of the corrupt governor of the island.

Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies, World History

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From the view on top of Blackbeard ’s Castle, the red-tiled roofs of the city of Charlotte Amalie ring a blue-green harbor that was once a pirate refuge in the late 1600s. Charlotte Amalie is the capital of the island of St. Thomas, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands . There is no proof the infamous English pirate Blackbeard caroused Charlotte Amalie’s taverns — Blackbeard ’s Castle is actually the name of a 10-meter (34-foot) tall Danish watchtower that has no apparent connection to its namesake. Captain William Kidd , a Scottish sailor famously executed for piracy, sailed into the harbor in 1699 to drop off five deserters and a sick man. Yet it’s a lesser-known French pirate , Jean Hamlin , whose presence on St. Thomas is best documented. Hamlin was a successful pirate , having raided English and other European ships off the coast of Jamaica and Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea. Hamlin also raided ships off the coast of Sierra Leone, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in northwestern Africa. Hamlin’s story in St. Thomas is told through historical documents in Isidor Paiewonsky’s 1961 book The Burning of a Pirate Ship, La Trompeuse . Hamlin, who helmed the ocean vessel La Trompeuse , captured ships off Hispaniola , the name given to the large Caribbean island where the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic are now located. In one incident, Hamlin captured a seaman on a shipping vessel and put the man’s thumbs in vices ( thumbscrews ) until he confessed what kind of cargo was ab oard his ship. Charles Consolvo, a maritime historian and a b oard member of the St. Thomas Historical Trust in Charlotte Amalie, explains how Hamlin came to St. Thomas, which was then governed by Denmark. “He had been wreaking depredations on British shipping in the Caribbean,” he says. “The British were after him. He came to St. Thomas, where he was apparently well-acquainted with the easy ways of Adolph Esmit , who was then governor of St. Thomas.”

Consolvo says St. Thomas was known for harboring pirates during Esmit’s governorship in the 1680s. “ Apparently , Esmit used to participate in buying the loot the pirates brought and generally giving them assistance and aid and succor ,” he says. Battle and Getaway Several British vessels were ordered to find La Trompeuse (French for “deception”). Captain Charles Carlile and his English warship the H.M.S. Francis finally came upon the pirate ship in the port of St. Thomas on July 30, 1683. A brief battle erupted with La Trompeuse . Unexpectedly, Carlile wrote in his journal , nearby Danish troops joined in the firefight —aiding the pirate ship in its fight against the H.M.S. Francis . Carlile was taken aback by the Danish military ’s actions. “Sent the master ashore with a letter to the Governor , protesting against the shot fired at the ship and asking for information as to the consorts of the pirates ,” he wrote in his journal . On the evening of July 31, 1683, Carlile and 14 of his men slid across the harbor toward La Trompeuse in two small boats. A firefight ensued. “The pirate discovered us before we reached them,” Carlile wrote in his journal . “We exchanged shots with them and then b oarded and took possession. The crew escaped. Fired her in several places and lay on our own oars close by to see that none came off to put out the fire. When she blew up, she kindled a great privateer that lay by, which burned to the water’s edge.” Although La Trompeuse burned in the harbor of Charlotte Amalie, the crew escaped—including the pirate leader, Jean Hamlin . Esmit, the crooked governor of St. Thomas, aided in his escape, according to a letter written by St. Thomas resident Andreas Brock and printed in Paiewonsky’s book. The English military searched in vain while Hamlin hid in Charlotte Amalie.

“The pirate , Hamlin, is housed here the whole time in the fort,” Brock wrote. “He has eaten and banqueted with Esmit. . . . He has brought much gold. Esmit would not deliver the said Hamyln to the English.” The Burning of a Pirate Ship, La Trompeuse concludes that Hamlin hid out in nearby Mosquito Bay before hijacking a frigate and sailing it to the coast of Brazil. Fallout from La Trompeuse What finally became of Hamlin has disappeared from history. After safely escaping to Brazil, he put together another pirate crew and helmed another ship— La Nouve Trompeuse . Governor Esmit’s troubles, however, are well-documented. Sir William Stapleton, the governor of Nevis, a British colony at the time, wrote to Esmit after the La Trompeuse incident. “I am sorry that your late conduct has convinced me and all the world that the re ports of your being a protector of pirates were true,” Stapleton wrote. “I have affidavits to that effect from some you had on shore and from the pirates themselves. It is plain from the fact that you secured John Hamlin, the arch murderer and torturer , and neither tried him nor delivered him to Captain Carlile, but allowed him to escape.” Consolvo says Esmit had a difficult time after word spread that he had assisted Hamlin. “He got himself in trouble with the Danish crown, and somehow his wife, who was well-connected, got him out of it, because he was reappointed governor ,” Consolvo says. Even though a treasure-hunter claimed to find the wreck of La Trompeuse in 1990, Consolvo believes the remains of the sunken vessel have not been located. If it were found, he thinks the ship would be of historical significance —though he doubts it would hold many riches. “I suspect that there was probably not very much on the ship at the time,” he says. “It would have been offloaded and sold. . . . Nobody really knows.” But a document written by Brock (the St. Thomas resident at the time of La Trompeuse ’s burning) suggests otherwise. “Hamlin’s frigate , that was burned by the English, was in the opinion of everyone here a beautiful ship, well loaded with provisions and other things. The treasure room was full of silver. There could be over 24,000 pounds there. Esmit could have let all this be taken from the ship but he did not want the people ashore to see what the ship had.”

American Isles In 1917, the United States purchased the Caribbean islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix from Denmark for $25 million. They are now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Tavern Town Maritime historian and St. Thomas resident Charles Consolvo says the city of Charlotte Amalie used to have a different name. "The town was called at one point 'Taphus' in Danish in the very early days, because it had so many taverns," he says.

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The Pirate’s Life at Sea

Author: Cindy Vallar

We harbor romantic ideas about life aboard a wooden ship, but Doctor Samuel Johnson once wrote, “No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in jail with the chance of being drowned…. A man in jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.”1 His words painted a far closer image to reality, for a mariner’s life was anything but comfortable. He lived belowdecks in dim, cramped, and filthy quarters. Rats and cockroaches abounded in the bowels of the ship. Privacy was nonexistent, especially aboard a pirate ship where two hundred men might inhabit a world measuring one hundred twenty by forty feet. Within the pages of Five Naval Journals 1789-1817, an anonymous sailor said, “On the same deck with me…slept between five and six hundred men; and the ports being necessarily closed from evening to morning, the heat in this cavern of only six feet high, and so entirely filled with human bodies, was overpowering.”2

Bathroom facilities were primitive. Rotting provisions, bilgewater, and unwashed bodies made the air rank. A storm meant days of dampness after it passed. Headroom between decks posed problems for taller men. Captain Rotheram of the HMS Bellerophon, whose gun deck headroom measured five feet eight inches, surveyed his crew and found they averaged five feet five inches in height.3

According to a sailor named Barrow, “There are no men under the sun that fare harder and get their living more hard and that are so abused on all sides as we poor seamen…so I could wish no young man to betake himself to this calling unless he had good friends to put him in place or supply his wants, for he shall find a great deal more to his sorrow than I have writ.”4 For these reasons most sailors were in their mid-twenties, having gone to sea much earlier. Whether pirate or seaman, they had to have stamina and dexterity that older men no longer possessed. They also spent from three months to several years away from home.

Added to these problems were the dangers inherent in a sailor’s life. He might plummet to his death while working the sails high above the deck. He might fall overboard, in which case the ship rarely returned for him and few sailors knew how to swim. Plus there was the danger of sharks in tropical waters. Then there was the danger of fire or shipwreck. Also, the dull routine that was the norm between the sighting of sail and boarding a prize, numbed sailors’ minds. Accidents and natural disasters certainly claimed sailors’ lives, as did sea fights, but men were far more likely to succumb to disease than anything else. Scurvy, dysentery, tuberculosis, typhus, smallpox, malaria, and yellow fever killed half of all seamen.  According to David Cordingly, “It has been calculated that during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France of 1793 to 1815 approximately 100,000 British seamen died. Of this number 1.5 per cent died in battle, 12 per cent died in shipwrecks or similar disasters, 20 per cent died from shipboard or dockside accidents, and no less than 65 per cent died from disease.”5 

Drinking water, stored in kegs, turned foul and sailors were sometimes forced to drink this water. More often, though, they drank rum or grog rather than the brandy and wine that officers imbibed. Pirates, on the other hand, drank a mixture of rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg; rumfustian, which blended raw eggs with sugar, sherry, gin, and beer; and sherry, brandy, and port.   The two most common foods sailors ate were salted meat and hard tack. The former might be kept in barrels for years before use. The latter was oftentimes invested with weevils. In the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic period, seamen ate a rather bland and routine diet. On Mondays they ate cheese and duff (flour pudding), Tuesdays and Saturdays boiled beef, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays dried peas and duff. On Sundays they were served dried pork and Figgy Dowdy or a similar treat. Supper consisted of leftovers from dinner, a biscuit, and a pint of grog. In contrast, on 14 August 1781, a rear-admiral served twelve dinners one meal that included: boiled ducks smothered with onions, roast goose, tarts, beaten butter, potatoes, French beans, whipped cream, fruit fritters, bacon, apple pie, boiled fowl, carrots and turnips, albacore, Spanish fritters, boiled beef, and roast mutton.6

It mattered not whether the salted meat and fish turned rancid. It wasn’t thrown away. “Merchants and owners of ships are grown to such a pass nowadays…for when they send a ship out for a voyage they will put no more victuals or drink in the ship than will just serve so many days, and if they have to be a little longer in this passage and meet with cross winds, then the poor men’s bellies must be pinched for it, and be put to shorten their allowance.”7

To restock their provisions, pirates stole from the ships they seized. They also supplemented their diets with dolphins, albacore tuna, and other varieties of fish. One particular food was the green turtle. They “are extremely good to eat--the flesh very sweet and the fat green and delicious. This fat is so penetrating that when you have eaten nothing but turtle flesh for three or four weeks, your shirt becomes so greasy from sweat you can squeeze the oil out and your limbs are weighed down with it.”8 They enjoyed salamagundi, which resembled a chef’s salad. Marinated bits of fish, turtle, and meat were combined with herbs, palm hearts, spiced wine, and oil, then served with hard-boiled eggs, pickled onions, cabbage, grapes, and olives. Pirates also ate yams, plantains, pineapples, papayas, and other fruits and vegetables indigenous to the tropics.

When their provisions ran scarce, pirates did resort to extreme measures. Charlotte de Berry’s crew purportedly ate two slaves and her husband. In 1670, Sir Henry Morgan’s crew ate their leather satchels. According to written accounts, they cut the leather into strips. After soaking these, they beat and rubbed the leather with stones to tenderize them. They scraped off the hair, then roasted or grilled the strips before cutting them into bite-size pieces.

Another aspect of life at sea involved sailors’ leisure time. Whether pirate or not, they enjoyed many of the same activities, only the amount differed, particularly where drink was concerned. While gambling did occur, it wasn’t conducive to harmony amongst the men, and even the pirates included it as an intolerable infraction in their articles of agreement. Chewing tobacco, scrimshaw, and embroidery were popular pastimes. They also spun yarns about fearsome ghosts and goblins. When pirates boarded a prize, musicians were among the most sought after sailors enlisted into the ranks of the pirates, whether they joined willingly or were forced, because pirates loved entertainment.

Why did sailors take the extra risk of going on the account? Piracy offered a number of advantages, not the least of which was freedom from the harsh discipline suffered in the Royal Navy or aboard a merchantman. Pirates rarely flogged their mates, and while marooning and death were severe forms of punishment, they never endured six hundred lashes, swallowing cockroaches or iron bolts to learn a lesson. Nor would a pirate captain dare to cut out an eye as happened to Richard Desbrough.9  Life on land was equally fraught with cruel punishments, for use of the thumbscrew, pillory, and branding iron were still in use. “Children as young as seven, both boys and girls, were hanged. …[I]n 1698, Parliament had passed a law that the theft of good, worth more than five shillings, rated the death penalty.”10

When a sea captain refused to join his crew, one pirate said, “Damn ye, you are a sneaking puppy and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security, for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they got by their knavery. But damn ye altogether. Damn them for a pack of craft rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, then there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage; had ye not better make one of use, than sneak after the arses of those villains for employment?”11

Aside from freedom, the financial rewards were far greater as a pirate than as a legitimate sailor, especially since pirates shared their plunder more equitably than privateers or the navy did. Gold, silver, silks, spices, timber, and a variety of other commodities made lucrative prizes. A privateer in the early seventeenth century might receive £10, the wages of most sailors for one year. A pirate, on the other hand, had the potential of earning up to £4,000 in a year, although he rarely held onto his ill-gotten gains for long. In 1695, Captain Avery and his men captured the Gunsway, and netted about £1,000 each. In 1721, pirates under John Taylor and Oliver la Buze netted £875,000 after seizing a Portuguese East Indiaman. 

Even so, not all sailors turned pirate when their ships were taken. Captain William Snelgrave spent time as a captive of Howell Davis. He published an account of his experiences in 1734. His descriptions of pirate life weren’t complimentary. “[T]he execrable Oaths and Blasphemies I heard among the Ship’s Company, shocked me to such a degree, that in Hell its self I thought there could not be worse; for though many Seafaring Men are given to swearing and taking God’s name in vain, yet I could not have imagined, human Nature could ever so far degenerate, as to talk in the manner those abandoned Wretches did.”12 “They hoisted upon Deck a great many half-Hogsheads of Claret, and French Brandy; knocked their Heads out, and dipped cans and bowls into them to drink out of: And in their Wantonness threw full Buckets of each sort upon one another. As soon as they had emptied what was on the Deck, they hoisted up more: and in the evening washed the Decks with what remained in the Casks. As to bottled Liquor of many sorts, they made such havoc of it, that in a few days they had not one Bottle left: For they would not give themselves the trouble of drawing the Cork out, but nicked the Bottles, as they called it, that is, struck their necks off with a Cutlace; by which means one in three was generally broke: Neither was there any Cask-liquor left in a short time, but a little brandy. As to Eatables, such as Cheeses, Butter, Sugar, and many other things, they were as soon gone. For the Pirates being all in a drunken Fit, which held as long as the Liquor lasted, no care was taken by any one to prevent this Destruction….”13

Pirates, however, saw life from a different perspective. While some regretted going on the account, most laughed in the face of death. All sailors knew they might die before a voyage ended, and pirates weighed past experiences against the promise of wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Even though few attained such wealth, they still opted for freedom and potential riches. Perhaps Bartholomew Roberts best summed up their philosophy. “In honest service there is thin rations, low wages and hard labour; in this [service], plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worse, is only a sour look or two at choking. No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.”14

Endnotes: 1 Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1987), page 258. 2 Patrick O’Brian’s Navy (2003), page 87. 3 Cordingly, David. The Billy Ruffian (2003), page 209. 4 Gill, Anton. The Devil’s Mariner (1997), page 75. 5 Cordingly, page 165. 6 Blake, Nicholas, and Richard Lawrence. The Illustrated Companion to Nelson’s Navy (2000), page 99. 7 Gill, page 77. 8 Exquemelin, Alexander O.. Buccaneers of America (1969), page 73. 9 Ibid, page 79. 10 Zacks, Richard. The Pirate Hunter (2002), page 357. 11 Gill, pages 79-80. 12 Breverton, Terry. Black Bart Roberts (2004), page 29. 13 Ibid., page 35. 14 Gill, page 80.

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A Lot of What Is Known about Pirates Is Not True, and a Lot of What Is True Is Not Known.

The pirate next door..

Howard Pyle / DoverPictura

In 1701, in Middletown, New Jersey, Moses Butterworth languished in a jail, accused of piracy. Like many young men based in England or her colonies, he had joined a crew that sailed the Indian Ocean intent on plundering ships of the Muslim Mughal Empire. Throughout the 1690s, these pirates marauded vessels laden with gold, jewels, silk, and calico on pilgrimage toward Mecca. After achieving great success, many of these men sailed back into the Atlantic via Madagascar to the North American seaboard, where they quietly disembarked in Charleston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York City, Newport, and Boston, and made themselves at home.

When Butterworth was captured, he admitted to authorities that he had served under the notorious Captain William Kidd, arriving with him in Boston before making his way to New Jersey. This would seem quite damning. Governor Andrew Hamilton and his entourage rushed to Monmouth County Court to quickly try Butterworth for his crimes. But the swashbuckling Butterworth was not without supporters.

In a surprising turn of events, Samuel Willet, a local leader, sent a drummer, Thomas Johnson, to sound the alarm and gather a company of men armed with guns and clubs to attack the courthouse. One report estimated the crowd at over a hundred furious East Jersey residents. The shouts of the men, along with the “Drum beating,” made it impossible to examine Butterworth and ask him about his financial and social relationships with the local Monmouth gentry.

Armed with clubs, locals Benjamin and Richard Borden freed Butterworth from the colonial authorities. “Commanding ye Kings peace to be keept,” the judge and sheriff drew their swords and injured both Bordens in the scuffle. Soon, however, the judge and sheriff were beaten back by the crowd, which succeeded in taking Butterworth away. The mob then seized Hamilton, his followers, and the sheriff, taking them prisoner in Butterworth’s place.

A witness claimed this was not a spontaneous uprising but “a Design for some Considerable time past,” as the ringleaders had kept “a pyratt in their houses and threatened any that will offer to seize him.”

Governor Hamilton had felt that his life was in danger. Had the Bordens been killed in the melee, he said, the mob would have murdered him. As it was, he was confined for four days until Butterworth was free and clear.

Jailbreaks and riots in support of alleged pirates were common throughout the British Empire during the late seventeenth century. Local political leaders openly protected men who committed acts of piracy against powers that were nominally allied or at peace with England. In large part, these leaders were protecting their own hides: Colonists wanted to prevent depositions proving that they had harbored pirates or purchased their goods. Some of the instigators were fathers-in-law of pirates.

There were less materialist reasons, too, why otherwise upstanding members of the community rebelled in support of sea marauders. Many colonists feared that crack-downs on piracy masked darker intentions to impose royal authority, set up admiralty courts without juries of one’s peers, or even force the establishment of the Anglican Church. Openly helping a pirate escape jail was also a way of protesting policies that interfered with the trade in bullion, slaves, and luxury items such as silk and calico from the Indian Ocean.

These repeated acts of rebellion against royal authorities in support of men who had committed blatant criminal acts inspired me to spend about ten years researching pirates, work that resulted in my book,  Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740 . In it, I analyzed the rise and fall of international piracy from the perspective of colonial hinterlands, from the inception of England’s burgeoning empire to its administrative consolidation. While traditionally depicted as swashbuckling adventurers on the high seas, pirates played a crucial role on land, contributing to the commercial development and economic infrastructure of port towns in colonial America.

Pirates could be found in nearly every Atlantic port city. But only particular locations became known as “pirate nests,” a pejorative term used by royalists and customs officials. Many of the most notorious pirates began their careers in these ports. Others established even deeper ties by settling in these cities and becoming respected members of the local elite. Instead of the snarling drunken fiends that parade through children’s books, these pirates spent their booty on pigs and chickens, hoping to live a more placid and financially secure life on land.

I was wholly uninterested in piracy as a child. I never dressed as a pirate on Halloween or even read pirate books. I went to graduate school at Harvard, intending to write about fatherhood in early America. In my third year, I presented to colleagues a 30-page essay that I hoped would be a chapter of my dissertation.

The paper was about William Harris, one of the first settlers of Rhode Island, who accumulated a massive estate through shrewd business tactics and slick legal dealings. A Puritan, Harris styled himself as an Abraham of the New World who would people a New Canaan. He composed a will that went to seven generations. In 1680, however, the elderly man was sailing toward London when Algerian pirates captured his vessel.

In the central market of the great walled city of Algiers, Harris was sold into slavery to a wealthy merchant. The once powerful man sent pitiful letters to Rhode Island, begging friends to ransom him and asking his wife to sell parts of his estate. He pleaded, “If you fail me of the said sum and said time it is most like to be the loss of my life, he [my captor] is so Cruel and Covetous. I live on bread and water.” After nearly two years of abject slavery, Harris became one of the lucky few to be ransomed. He made his way back to London, where, after a few weeks on Christian land, the exhausted patriarch died.

The Anglo-Dutch fleet in the Bay of Algiers, which thrived on an economy of piracy in the 17th century.

Wikimedia / Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Algiers episode was marginal to my larger points about fatherhood. But, as the discussion went around the room, all that anyone wanted to talk about was pirates. This was a few years before  Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl  became a worldwide sensation. One colleague working on Atlantic families had noticed that locals in South Carolina seemed strangely unsurprised when pirates came ashore in the 1680s. Another colleague came upon a pirate who arrived in Newport in the 1690s, bought land, settled down, and became a customs official. This more-than-passing interest in pirates, as opposed to fathers, left me quite concerned. I had already taken my qualifying exams. I knew nothing about piracy. And since few scholars had written about piracy, I assumed it was not an important topic. Yet there it was, boarding the ship of my research agenda without permission.

Distraught, I cut a deal with my adviser that I would spend a month in the archives, examining government records and official correspondences to find out more. Sure enough, pirates were everywhere. But they were not who we thought they were. They were not anarchistic, antisocial maniacs. At least not in the seventeenth century. Like Moses Butterworth, many were welcome in colonial communities. They married local women, and bought land and livestock. Pirate James Brown even married the daughter of the governor of Pennsylvania and was appointed to the Pennsylvania House of Assembly.

Notorious buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan, shown in a Dutch engraving, raided Spain's Caribbean colonies from his base in Jamaica.

Private collection / Bridgeman Images

Pirates, it seemed, could be civil, neighborly, and law-abiding. Why hadn’t this been noticed before? I chalk it up to specialization. By focusing so closely on their own areas of expertise, historians had overlooked how piracy permeated colonial life.

Piracy has not achieved its rightful place in the narrative of American history precisely because it was so familiar to the people of the English-speaking world of the seventeenth century. In the early days of the colonies, pirate attacks were considered a commonplace, inevitable feature of the maritime world, and noted only as entertaining asides. The prevalence of piracy in children’s stories and blockbuster movies has likely also made it difficult for historians to study the topic without romanticism. This was where my childhood disinterest in piracy paid off. I embarked on my research as a historian rather than as a fan.

Historians and fiction writers alike have portrayed pirates as inherently removed from civilized society. Hubert Deschamps in his 1949  Les pirates à Madagascar  voiced what has become a standard trope: “[Pirates] were a unique race, born of the sea and of a brutal dream, a free people, detached from other human societies and from the future, without children and without old people, without homes and without cemeteries, without hope but not without audacity, a people for whom atrocity was a career choice and death a certitude of the day after tomorrow.” Seventeenth-century lawyers defined pirates, in the words of Admiralty judge Sir Leoline Jenkins, as  hostis   humani generis , or “Enemies not of one Nation or of one Sort of People only, but of all mankind.” Since pirates lacked the legal protection of any prince, nation, or body of law, “Every Body is commissioned and is to be armed against them, as against Rebels and Traytors, to subdue and root them out.”

Contemporary historians have tended to use pirates for their own ends, depicting them as rebels against convention. Their pirates critique early modern capitalism and challenge oppressive sexual norms. They are cast as proto-feminists or supporters of homosocial utopias. They challenge oppressive social hierarchies by flaunting social graces or wearing flamboyant clothing above their social stations. They subvert oppressive notions of race, citing the presence of black crew members as evidence of race blindness. Moses Butterworth, however, did none of these things.

A pirate faces hanging by the River Thames in the eighteenth century.

Private collection / Peter Newark Historical Pictures / Bridgeman Images

The true rebels were leaders like Samuel Willet, establishment figures on land who led riots against crown authority. It was the higher reaches of colonial society, from governors to merchants, who supported global piracy, not some underclass or proto proletariat.

Popular culture has invested heavily in the image of pirates as anarchists who speak in colorful language and dress in attire recognizable to any five-year-old. In fact, what we imagine pirates to look and sound like matches only one decade of history: 1716 to 1726. Before that, piracy consisted of a spectrum of activities from the heroic to the maniacal. Many historians, like many pirate fans, write about piracy as a static phenomenon. This is the basis of popular events like International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19) or the costume worn by Jack Sparrow. When asked if these common tropes are true, I give a typical historian’s answer: It depends on when and where.

For the period before the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, it makes more sense to talk about a sailor who commits piracy, rather than an actual “pirate.” Imagine a ten-year-old boy caught stealing candy from the store. If he learned his lesson, it would be ludicrous to call him a “thief” when he reached adulthood. If he goes on to get a PhD and becomes a respectable historian, it makes more sense to call him “professor.” Certainly there were flamboyant captains of legendary status who would never consider legitimate commerce as a way of life. But most sought one large prize and hoped to use their plunder to join the middling to upper echelons of colonial society.

One reason piracy was often an act or a phase, and not a way of life, was simply because humans have not evolved to live on the sea. The sea is a hostile place, offering few of the pleasures of terrestrial society. Pirates needed to clean and repair their ships, collect wood and water, gather crews, obtain paperwork, fence their goods, or obtain sexual gratification. Simply put, what is the value of silver and gold in the middle of the ocean? Why would someone risk his life in a hostile maritime world if there was no chance he could actually spend his booty?

“A Merry Life and a Short One” was not the motto of most pirates of the late seventeenth century. Until the 1710s, English pirates almost always had somewhere to go to spend their money, either for a few days or to settle down for good. The British National Archives holds a petition from 48 wives of known pirates, begging the crown to pardon their husbands so they could return home to care for their families. Returning to London was not an option for most sea rovers, but a life in the American colonies offered the closest proxy.

Robert Rich, Second Earl of Warwick, who was instrumental to the development of the American colonies and commanded a fleet of privateers, was painted by Anthony van Dyck around 1632.

© Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY

Support of piracy on the peripheries of the British Empire dates to the first forays of English sea captains overseas.  Pirate Nests  begins in Elizabethan England with the active protection of piracy by port communities in Devon and Cornwall. The ascension of James I coincided with the migration of a plunder economy from England to farther shores. Puritan communities in Ireland, and soon the fledgling colonies of Jamestown, Bermuda, New Plymouth, and Boston all supported illicit sea marauders. Upon the conquest of Jamaica in 1655, Port Royal became a renowned pirate nest, led by Henry Morgan, whose attacks against the Spanish were defended by the colony’s governor and council. By the 1680s, pirates who plundered along the Spanish Main or in the “South Sea” coasts of Chile and Peru dropped anchor in the North American colonies. In the 1690s, men like Moses Butterworth joined crews heading out of colonial ports to the Indian Ocean, basing themselves on the island of Madagascar.

English pirate Mary Reed, who dressed as a man, reveals herself to a victim.

Private collection / DoverPictura

Beginning in 1696, support for piracy was threatened by Parliament’s efforts to reform the legal and political administration of the colonies. Initial attempts to better regulate the colonies faced heated resistance like the riot that sprang Moses Butterworth in 1701. Royal officials battled with colonial elites over control of their court system, choice of governors, economic policies, and other issues. But the transformation of law, politics, economics, and even popular culture in a relatively brief period of time soon persuaded landed colonists of the long-term benefits of legal trade over the short-term boom of the pirate market. After being sprung from jail, Moses Butterworth eventually headed to Newport, where, in 1704, he captained a sloop that sailed alongside a man-of-war in pursuit of runaway English sailors. The former pirate had turned pirate-hunter.

Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, has inspired the depiction of pirates in fiction, film, and on stage.

New York Public Library / Art Resource, NY

The expansion of commercial trade, particularly the slave trade, cemented a colonial social order increasingly threatened by instability at sea and less tolerant of social mobility on land. This change in attitudes led to the period we call the “War on Pirates”—roughly 1716 to 1726—and the advent of sea marauders who, with little hope of ever resettling on land, attacked their own nation. This is the era of characters like Blackbeard (Edward Teach), Bartholomew Roberts, and female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, colorful rebels who lived dangerously and fit the legend. Where for centuries pirates had sailed under the flags of their own nations or of foreign princes, they now sailed—and were hanged under—flags of their own construction. No longer welcomed by the colonial elite, outlaw vessels were routed from shores that once harbored pirate nests. In 1718 and 1723, the ports of Newport, Rhode Island, and Charleston, South Carolina, tried and hanged crews of 23 and 26 pirates, respectively, the two largest mass executions not involving a slave insurrection in colonial America. As a result, by the late 1720s the pirate scourge had largely abated.

Mark G. Hanna is associate professor of history at the University of California–San Diego and the founding associate director of the UCSD Institute of Arts and Humanities. He received an NEH research fellowship that supported his work on Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740 , which won the 2016 Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians and the 2016 John Ben Snow Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies.

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Sir Francis Drake

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 6, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

Sir Francis Drake participated in some of the earliest English slaving voyages to Africa and earned a reputation for his privateering, or piracy, against Spanish ships and possessions. Sent by Queen Elizabeth to South America in 1577, he returned home via the Pacific and became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe; the queen rewarded him with a knighthood. In 1588, Drake served as second-in-command during the English victory over the Spanish Armada. The most famous mariner of the Elizabethan Age, he died off the coast of Panama in 1596 and was buried at sea.

Born sometime between 1540 and 1544 in Devonshire, England, Francis Drake was the son of a tenant farmer on the estate of Lord Francis Russell, earl of Bedford. He was brought up in Plymouth by the Hawkins family, relatives who worked as merchants and privateers (often referred to as pirates).

Drake went to sea for the first time around the age of 18 with the Hawkins family fleet, and by the 1560s had earned command of his own ship.

Did you know? When he died off the coast of Panama in 1596, Sir Francis Drake was buried at sea, wearing full armor and encased in a lead-lined coffin. Divers, treasure hunters and Drake enthusiasts continue to search for his final resting place.

Slave Trade

In 1567, Drake and his cousin John Hawkins sailed to Africa in order to join the fledgling slave trade. When they sailed to New Spain to sell their captives to settlers there (which was against Spanish law), they were trapped by a Spanish attack in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulua.

Many of their crewmates were killed in the incident, though Drake and Hawkins escaped, and Drake returned to England with what would be a lifelong hatred for Spain and its ruler, King Philip II .

Privateer for the British Crown

After leading two successful expeditions to the West Indies, Drake came to the attention of Queen Elizabeth I , who granted him a privateer’s commission, effectively giving him the right to plunder Spanish ports in the Caribbean. Drake did just that in 1572, capturing the port of Nombre de Dios (a drop-off point for silver and gold brought from Peru) and crossing the Isthmus of Panama, where he first caught sight of the immense Pacific Ocean. He returned to England with a large amount of Spanish treasure, an accomplishment that earned him a reputation as a leading privateer.

In 1577, Queen Elizabeth commissioned Drake to lead an expedition around South America through the notoriously stormy Straits of Magellan . The voyage was plagued by conflict between Drake and the two other men tasked with sharing command.

When they arrived off the coast of Argentina, Drake had one of the men–Thomas Doughty–arrested, tried and beheaded for allegedly plotting a mutiny. Of the five-ship fleet, two ships were lost in a storm; the other commander, John Wynter, turned one back to England and another disappeared. Drake’s 100-ton flagship, the Pelican (which he later renamed Golden Hind ), was the only vessel to reach the Pacific, in October 1578.

Drake Circumnavigates the Globe

After plundering Spanish ports along the west coast of South America, Drake headed north in search of a passage back to the Atlantic. He claimed to have traveled as far north as 48 degrees North (on parallel with Vancouver, Canada) before extreme cold conditions turned him back. Drake anchored near today’s San Francisco and claimed the surrounding land, which he called New Albion, for Queen Elizabeth.

Heading back west across the Pacific in July 1579, he stopped in the Philippines and bought spices in the Molucca Islands. He then sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa and arrived back in England’s Plymouth Harbor in September 1580.

Despite complaints from the Spanish government about his piracy, Drake was honored as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe and became a popular hero. Several months after his return, Queen Elizabeth personally knighted him aboard the Golden Hind .

The Spanish Armada

In 1585, with hostilities heating up again between England and Spain, the queen gave Drake command of a fleet of 25 ships. He sailed to the West Indies and the coast of Florida and mercilessly plundered Spanish ports there, taking Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, Cartagena in Colombia, St. Augustine in Florida and San Domingo (now Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic).

On the return voyage, he rescued a failed English military colony on Roanoke Island off the Carolinas in 1586. (The unlucky island was later the scene of a mysterious disappearance of about 100 English settlers, none of whom were ever found.)

Drake then led an even bigger fleet (30 ships) into the Spanish port of Cádiz and destroyed a large number of vessels being readied for the Spanish Armada . In 1588, Drake served as second-in-command to Admiral Charles Howard in the English victory over the supposedly invincible Spanish fleet.

Final Years

After a failed 1589 expedition to Portugal, Drake returned home to England for several years, until Queen Elizabeth enlisted him for one more voyage, against Spanish possessions in the West Indies in early 1596.

The expedition proved to be a dismal failure: Spain fended off the English attacks, and Drake came down with fever and dysentery. He died in late January 1596 at age 55 off the coast of Puerto Bello (now Portobelo, Panama).

Sir Francis Drake. National Park Service . Sir Francis Drake (c.1540 - c.1596). BBC . Sir Francis Drake Facts. Royal Museums Greenwich . Roanoke Voyages. The Lost Colony .

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How did pirates travel from ship to shore?

Pirates have long been depicted in popular culture as swashbuckling adventurers who traverse the high seas in search of treasure and adventure. However, for pirates to achieve their goals, they had to get from their ships to the shore. But how did they manage to do it?

Firstly, pirates often used small boats and rafts to travel to shore. This could include rowboats, canoe-like boats, and dinghies. These small boats were usually kept on board pirating ships and used for short trips to other vessels or nearby islands. There were also larger vessels that could be used, such as longboats or cutters, that had bigger crews and were capable of longer journeys.

However, the distance of the shoreline from the pirate ship often made the use of smaller boats impractical. In these cases, pirates would have to engage in a more daring method of transportation called “swimming the plank.” In this method, the pirating ship would anchor itself near the shore and build an extension to the deck called a “plank.” The prisoners or pirates would then be forced to walk across the plank and jump into the water, where they would either swim to the shore or be picked up in a smaller boat.

Another more extreme way of traveling from ship to shore was by using a device called a “rope launcher” or “cannon net.” This involved attaching a rope, or even a net, to the ship and firing it towards the shore using a small cannon. The pirates would then use the rope or net to swing or climb to the shore.

In some cases, pirates would also use innovative methods, including attaching barrels to themselves to help them float, or tying themselves together in groups to provide support and buoyancy.

Pirates had various methods of traveling from their ships to the shore. They used everything from small boats and rafts to extreme and dangerous techniques, such as swimming the plank or using a rope launcher. These methods were all necessary for pirates to do what they did best: plunder the riches of other ships and make their fortune on the high seas. So, next time you watch a pirate movie, take a moment to appreciate the bravery it took for them to get to shore.

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Unsettling Facts About Modern Pirates (And Where In The World You’ll Find Them)

Modern-day pirates no longer fly jolly rogers or force their victims to walk the plank, but they are no less dangerous.

Thought that pirates disappeared after the 18th century? Think again! Modern pirates are a real threat to sea vessels operating all over the world and can even result in the death of victims at sea . And although they no longer fly jolly rogers or force their victims to walk the plank, they are no less dangerous. Check out these unsettling facts about modern pirates and where in the world you’ll find them.

Modern Pirates Use Advanced Technology, Including Night-Vision Goggles And Rocket Launchers

The days of pirates wielding swords are long gone but that doesn’t mean that modern pirates don’t carry weapons. In fact, piracy hasn’t changed in regard to pirates being heavily armed. The weapons they brandish have always been what makes pirates so fearsome and that’s especially true today, with modern pirates using everything from night-vision goggles to rocket launchers to rob ships.

These days, pirates use AK-47s and heavy machine guns to instill fear in their victims, while rocket launchers allow them to target ships from a long way away. They use night-vision goggles and advanced GPS devices to help with navigation and locating other ships at night.

Pirates Still Assault And Maroon People

While pirates from the Golden Age used to live their lives at sea, modern pirates typically base themselves on the shore and attack via speedboats. Their methods have changed, with guns being much more common among pirates these days than swords. But their goal is the same: to intimidate and rob crew members on other ships, sometimes assaulting and marooning them in the process. Pirates from the Golden Age often marooned members of their own crew who turned on them, while these days they leave their victims marooned and take off with their ships.

Modern pirates have even been known to take hostages for ransom. In some cases, those who have been kidnapped by pirates have even died at the hands of their captors.

RELATED: 10 Crime Sites That True Crime Junkies Should Visit

They Attack Cruise Ships

This fact is definitely unsettling for anybody who likes cruising! Modern pirates typically target cargo vessels but they have also been known to attack private yachts and cruise ships, robing the personal belongings of crew members and passengers rather than targeting a ship’s cargo.

In 2005, the luxury liner Seaborne Spirit was off the coast of Somalia having departed from Alexandria. Three boats of heavily armed pirates assaulted the ship for two hours , slamming grenades and bullets into the side of the ship. The passengers were all ordered to congregate in the ship’s main ballroom. Thankfully, the crew was able to ward off the pirates by using an L-RAD device that emitted a loud, piercing sound. There were no casualties and the cruise was able to finish their voyage on schedule.

It’s not as common for pirates to attack cruise ships. But it’s not unheard of or impossible.

RELATED: Cruise Lines Are Still Running Trips in 2020: These Are 11 Unsettling Facts

Pirate Attacks Are Actually On The Rise

Most people think of piracy as something that belongs in the 17thand 18thcenturies. But it has been estimated that modern piracy is actually on the rise, having increased 75% in the last decade alone. International losses due to piracy are estimated to be at around $13-16 billion a year.

In 2010, there were nearly 490 reports of piracy and armed robbery against ships, a figure which had risen 20% from the previous year. Although there’s currently no plan in place to eliminate modern piracy, raising awareness of the issue is a promising starting point.

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These Are The Places You’ll Find Modern Pirates

Of course, thousands of people travel by cruise ship or by boat every year and don’t come face to face with pirates. In some areas of the world, piracy is still essentially non-existent, while in others, it’s rampant. One of the most notorious places that you’ll find modern pirates is off the Somali Coast, between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the Gulf of Aden.

Other piracy hot spots include East Africa, the South China Sea, certain coastlines off South America, and in the Caribbean. There have also been reports of pirate attacks on the Danube River, particularly through the Serbian and Romanian stretches.

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Distillations magazine

The age of scurvy.

In a time of warring empires and transoceanic voyages, sailors dreaded scurvy more than any other disease.

One summer evening in 1808, while on a stroll through London with his wife and sister-in-law, sailor Thomas Urquhart was accosted by a stranger who wanted to know his name. As the outraged Urquhart demanded to know by what right the man questioned him, three or four men seized him, smacked him on the head, and dragged him along the street. They “tore my coat from my back, and afterwards [pulled] me by the neck for fifty yards, until life was nearly exhausted,” wrote Urquhart in a letter that described the assault.

Fortunately for Urquhart passersby intervened, and the attackers fled. But unfortunately Urquhart’s experience was far from unique. In the 18th and early 19th centuries fishermen and merchant seamen like Urquhart lived in fear of “press gangs,” groups of ruffians who roamed the nighttime streets, searching for victims to “impress” into the British navy. Whether English, Irish, American, or Canadian, any subject of the British Empire with seafaring experience was vulnerable to abduction.

If the gang that attacked Urquhart had succeeded, he likely would have awoken trapped on a ship and with nearly no hope of escape. By the time he returned home—if he returned home—he would have endured storms, battles, fevers, and years away from family and friends. But of all the horrors faced by sailors at the time, one of the greatest threats had nothing to do with pirates or wars or weather. It had to do with food.

Scurvy killed more than two million sailors between the time of Columbus’s transatlantic voyage and the rise of steam engines in the mid-19th century. The problem was so common that shipowners and governments assumed a 50% death rate from scurvy for their sailors on any major voyage. According to historian Stephen Bown scurvy was responsible for more deaths at sea than storms, shipwrecks, combat, and all other diseases combined. In fact, scurvy was so devastating that the search for a cure became what Bown describes as “a vital factor determining the destiny of nations.”

None of the potential fates awaiting sailors was pleasant, but scurvy exacted a particularly gruesome death. The earliest symptom—lethargy so intense that people once believed laziness was a cause of the disease—is debilitating. Your body feels weak. Your joints ache. Your arms and legs swell, and your skin bruises at the slightest touch. As the disease progresses, your gums become spongy and your breath fetid, your teeth loosen, and internal hemorrhaging makes splotches on your skin. Old wounds open; mucous membranes bleed. Left untreated, you will die, likely from a sudden hemorrhage near your heart or brain.

Bown quotes a survival story written by an unknown surgeon on a 16th-century English voyage that reveals the horror of the disease:

Scurvy affected many of the explorers we learned about in grade school: Vasco da Gama lost his brother to it; Ferdinand Magellan watched it kill many of his men, who had nothing to eat, he wrote, but “old biscuit reduced to powder, and full of grubs, and stinking from the dirt which the rats had made on it when eating the good biscuit.” The most famous scurvy-related disaster, however—and the one that fully captures the enduring importance of the tart substance we call vitamin C—was the ill-fated voyage of George Anson, whose 1740–1744 circumnavigation of the globe was the scene of one of the worst medical disasters at sea.

In late 1739 England and Spain declared war to determine control of the Caribbean. Anson, a British captain who had recently returned from the West Indies, was put in charge of a six-ship mission to the Pacific coast of South America, an area important to Spanish trade. In an official portrait Anson’s round face, pursed lips, and feminine curls make him look more like a grandmother than a ship’s captain. But if Anson’s countenance was placid, the task that lay ahead of him was far from pleasant. First, he was to aggravate the Spaniards as much as possible by attacking vulnerable Spanish towns and destroying or capturing any Spanish ships he could find. Second, he was to track down and capture one of the Spanish treasure galleons that transported silver from Acapulco to Manila in the Philippines. Such a ship was so valuable it was known as the “Prize of all the Oceans.”

Anson began his preparations in February 1740, and problems arose from the start. The ships assigned to Anson needed to be repaired and refitted for his mission, a task that would take months. The bigger challenge, however, was finding sailors since the Royal Navy was snatching up for military service all the able-bodied men it could find—often through press gangs like the one Thomas Urquhart encountered in 1808.

Anson’s mission was low on the navy’s priority list, and even the press gangs couldn’t supply him with a sufficient crew: he was supposed to sail with 2,000 men, but by July 1740 he was still a couple hundred short.

The Royal Navy, eager to make room for wounded sailors from the war, eventually came up with both a clever and horrifying solution: it emptied out a hospital, Chelsea Hospital to be exact, which was home to war veterans who were so old, wounded, crippled, or mentally unsound they could no longer serve in marching regiments. Making things worse, those recruits who were relatively healthy did something quite rational: on their release from the hospital they simply walked away. As Anson’s chaplain, Richard Walter, later wrote in the voyage’s official account, this left behind “only such as were literally invalids, most of them being sixty years of age, and some of them upwards of seventy.” To make up for the 240-odd quasicompetent invalids (out of an initial 500) who had limped off, the navy supplied Anson with 210 young marines, so inexperienced and untrained, wrote Walter, that they had never even been permitted to fire their guns.

The six ships and their ragtag crews finally set sail in September after some six months of preparation and—since they’d survived on ship rations while waiting to depart—months without access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Already weakened by some combination of age, sickness, war wounds, and malnourishment, Anson’s crew was likely terrified of what lay ahead: years at sea, deliberately seeking out conflict wherever they could find it. But what they should have feared the most was not Spanish warships but what sailors at the time called “the Scurvy.”

Aware of that risk, the navy issued Anson’s crew several of the most popular treatments of the day: vinegar, “elixir of vitriol” (a mixture of sulfuric acid and alcohol), and a patent medicine called Ward’s Drop and Pill, which was known less for its curative abilities than for its laxative effects. While all the treatments were universally unpleasant, none did a thing to prevent scurvy. As the months wore on, the men’s vulnerability increased.

The disease hit at the worst possible time, while the ships were rounding Cape Horn, a turbulent stretch of ocean at the tip of South America. On March 7, 1741, once the squadron passed successfully through the straits that were considered the boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Walter optimistically reported that “we could not help flattering ourselves that the greatest difficulty of our passage was now at an end.” The sky was clear; the weather was calm; the men’s spirits were high. But their optimism was unfounded. March 7 was, says Walter, “the last cheerful day that the greatest part of us would ever live to enjoy.”

Suddenly the sky blackened, and the winds shifted. As the ships were pushed off course, the water began to churn with waves so mountainous that if one had broken over a ship, wrote Walter, it would “in all probability have sent us to the bottom.” The southern hemisphere’s autumn storms had begun—and once they started, they raged for months. It rained. It snowed. It hailed. Men got frostbite. In a moment that haunted witnesses for years, one of Anson’s best sailors was tossed into the water and continued to swim strongly alongside the ship, his comrades watching helplessly, until he was finally lost in the waves. Much of the mainsail of Anson’s ship, the Centurion , was blown overboard; the ship itself was so damaged by the buffeting waves that it leaked water at every seam.

These storms lasted for an inconceivable three months. By the time the weather finally broke in late May, two of Anson’s ships had given up and turned back, and the remainder had been separated, unaware of whether the other ships had survived. The hospital pensioners and most of the young marines were dead.

The storms were a horrific challenge, but scurvy proved even more destructive than the gales. “At the latter end of April, there were but a few on board who were not in some degree afflicted with it,” wrote Walter, “and in that month no less than forty-three died of it on board the Centurion .” In May that number doubled. As the number of men above deck dwindled, the scene below grew ever worse: sick men with open sores and rotting wounds swaying in tightly packed hammocks above a sloshing, rat-infested floor. Victims developed discolored spots all over their bodies, their legs swelled, and if they exerted themselves in even the tiniest degree—or were simply moved by someone else—they were apt to swoon and die immediately. When they did, they often remained right where they were since the remaining crew was too weak to throw their bodies overboard.

“This disease so frequently attending long voyages, and so particularly destructive to us, is surely the most singular and unaccountable of any that afflicts the human body,” Walter later wrote. It did things that he admitted sound “scarcely credible.” One dying sailor who had been wounded 50 years earlier watched in horror as his wounds “broke out afresh, and appeared as if they had never been healed.” Later, “the callous of a broken bone, which had been completely formed for a long time, was found to be hereby dissolved, and the fracture seemed as if it had never been consolidated.”

Anson and his subordinates had agreed that in case they were separated, they would rendezvous at Juan Fernández Island, a buccaneer hideout located several hundred miles off the Chilean coast due west of Santiago. Despite sickness and storms the Centurion finally reached the island in June and was eventually joined by the expedition’s two remaining ships: the Gloucester and the appropriately named Tryal . By that point the Centurion had only 70 men who were well enough to sail; the Gloucester and the Tryal had each lost more than half of their crews, mostly to scurvy. Out of the 1,200 or so men who would have originally been on the three ships, only 335 had survived.

Recovery took time. “To our great mortification,” wrote Walter, “it was near twenty days after their landing, before the mortality was tolerably ceased; and for the first ten or twelve days, we buried rarely less than six each day, and many of those who survived recovered by very slow and insensible degrees.” Luckily, Juan Fernández Island turned out to be a veritable paradise, with acres of oats and clover, turnips and radishes, wild cresses, and sorrel, many of which are high in vitamin C. They also found a multitude of fish, including sea crayfish that Walter insisted weighed up to eight or nine pounds apiece. Anson was so giddy over the abundance of fresh food and crayfish dinners that he unpacked a stash of seeds he’d brought from home and planted them for future visitors to enjoy: lettuces, carrots, and the pits from peaches, apricots, and plums. The men stayed on the island for three months.

After nursing themselves back to health Anson and his men spent several months tooling around the South American coast, attacking Spanish towns and ships and managing, while close to land, to eat enough produce to keep scurvy at bay: there seemed to be a general acceptance among seafarers that fresh produce was helpful, though no one knew why. But the disease resurfaced during their Pacific crossing in the summer of 1742, killing up to five sailors a day; in mid-August they were forced to abandon the Gloucester because there weren’t enough men to repair it. (After transferring the sick onto the Centurion , the remainder of the sailors got wickedly drunk off the officers’ liquor cabinet and then torched the abandoned ship.)

Nonetheless, Anson somehow made it to Canton (now Guangzhou, China). There, despite the fact his total crew including new recruits numbered only 227 people, Anson decided to try for his mission’s second goal: finding and ambushing a Spanish treasure ship. In a nearly unbelievable stroke of luck the gamble paid off. On June 20, 1743, Anson captured a treasure galleon. In dramatic contrast to the numbers he’d lost to scurvy, only three of his men died in the fight.

Despite the horrendous loss of life during Anson’s voyage, the British navy considered the venture a success. Anson returned to England a rich and celebrated man and was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1751. But despite his power and title he never lost sight of the price of his success: of the 2,000 men who set out with Anson, only a few hundred had made it home alive.

When reading such gruesome accounts, it’s difficult not to want to travel back in time, grab these men by the shoulders, and beg them to eat some lemons—or oranges, or any of the many other foods that contain vitamin C. This wouldn’t even have been a new idea: one of the strangest things about the history of scurvy (and many other vitamin-deficiency diseases) is that people kept figuring out cures and then forgetting them.

In 1535 the French explorer Jacques Cartier reported that after his ships had become locked in ice in the St. Lawrence River, his men were saved from scurvy by a special tea prepared by local Native Americans from the bark and leaves of a particular tree. In the 1500s and 1600s several ship captains suggested there might be a connection between fruits and vegetables and scurvy. In 1734 a Dutch physician named Johannes Bachstrom came up with the term antiscorbutic (“without scurvy”) and used it to describe fresh vegetables, thus becoming the first person known to suggest that scurvy might be a deficiency disease. Even Anson made a point of loading up on oranges whenever possible, and his chaplain, Walter, praised Juan Fernández Island for having “almost all the vegetables which are usually esteemed to be particularly adapted to the cure of those scorbutic disorders which are contracted by salt diet and long voyages.” Even though no one knew the cause of scurvy or what about these various foods made them antiscorbutic, many mariners recognized a connection between their diets and their health.

Today we know why fresh veggies stave off scurvy. Despite the chemical differences among vitamins, they all play crucial roles in our metabolism, a term that while often used in reference to our pants size, actually refers to all the series of chemical reactions that occur in our cells.

Though we rarely are aware of these reactions, our lives depend on them. Walking down the street requires them. Reading a book requires them. So does forming scar tissue, developing a baby, or creating any type of new cell. Chemical reactions build and break down muscle, regulate body temperature, filter toxins, excrete waste, support our immune systems, and affect (or indeed cause) our moods. They generate the energy we need to breathe and use the oxygen we inhale to pull energy from food. They allow us to feel and see and taste and touch and hear. Our metabolisms aren’t just a facet of our lives; they are our lives. Without these metabolic chemical reactions we would be as inert as stone.

The problem with many of these reactions, however, is that they’re way too slow: if they were left to run at their own speed, life would grind to a halt. Our bodies get around this issue with the help of enzymes, large protein molecules that kick-start and speed up specific chemical reactions, often making them occur millions of times faster than they would on their own. But our bodies sometimes need help making enzymes, and enzymes themselves sometimes need help doing their jobs. That’s where vitamins come in: two of their primary functions are to help our bodies make enzymes and to aid enzymes in their work. While enzymes speed up chemical reactions without being destroyed themselves, most vitamin-dependent reactions actually use up the vitamins. That’s why we need a continuous external supply.

It makes sense then that vitamin deficiencies cause problems because without adequate vitamins every enzymatic process that depends on those vitamins will come screeching to a stop. In the case of scurvy the issue is collagen, a primary structural protein in our muscle, skin, bones, blood vessels, cartilage, scars, and other connective tissues that makes up some 30% of the protein in the human body. Collagen holds our tissues together; the word itself is derived from the Greek word for glue . Without collagen our bodies would come apart from within—hence the hemorrhaging, broken bones, and loose teeth of scurvy. (Despite sailors’ testimonials, though, it is unlikely scurvy would cause any previously healed bones to actually dissolve. But, says Michael Levine, medical director of the Center for Bone Health at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, scurvy does cause bone weakness that could contribute to fractures—which means that if a bone had been previously broken, the healed section might be particularly vulnerable to breaking again.) We make collagen from its precursor, procollagen, with the help of enzymes. But those enzymatic reactions can’t happen—and thus collagen cannot be formed—without vitamin C.

Early explorers didn’t know about collagen or enzymes. As for the era’s doctors and scientific thinkers, not only did they lack the analytical tools and chemical knowledge necessary to even conceive of a nutritional-deficiency disease, but many popular hypotheses about scurvy’s cause were still related to the ancient theory of the humours, including alkalinity, acidity, too much black bile, and blocked perspiration. Supposed triggers lacked even that medical grounding: according to author Frances Rachel Frankenburg they ranged from fatigue and depression to homesickness, contagion, seawater, damp air, copper pans, tobacco, hot climate, cold climate, rats, heredity, contagion, too much fresh fruit (whoops), too much exercise, too little exercise, sea air, salted meat, poor morals, and filth.

But even if the concept of vitamins had been familiar, vitamin C would be a tough one to figure out. Humans—along with guinea pigs, fruit bats, and several other simians—are the only mammals that can’t make their own vitamin C. For every other creature vitamin C is referred to as “ascorbic acid” (shorthand for antiscorbutic acid), and—since their bodies can produce it in sufficient quantities—it isn’t considered a vitamin at all.

It’s also not obvious where to find vitamin C. Cabbage and broccoli have a lot. Eggs and cheese don’t have any. There are large amounts in liver and kidneys but not in muscle meat. A half-cup of pears will give a woman about 4% of her daily recommended dietary allowance, but the same amount of kiwi will give her 111%.

These days we associate vitamin C with citrus fruits. That’s mainly because of the British navy, which, beginning in the 19th century, supplied its sailors with limes—chosen instead of lemons because Britain controlled colonies that grew limes (hence the nickname “limey” for British sailors). But this thriftiness came at a price: limes have only half as much vitamin C as lemons and oranges. Preparation matters, too. The proponents of “rob,” a popular treatment made from boiled-down citrus juice, had the right idea, except guess what? Vitamin C is destroyed by heat—not to mention cutting, bruising, exposure to air, and being cooked in copper pots.

As a result the confusion over scurvy was so great that even James Lind, the person who gets the most credit for establishing that citrus fruit cures scurvy, overlooked his own discovery.

Lind was a Scottish physician who served as a naval surgeon on the British ship the HMS Salisbury in 1747 and devised what is considered to be one of the world’s first controlled experiments. He took 12 sailors who were similarly sick with scurvy and divided them into six pairs. All the men ate the same food and lived in the same quarters on the ship; the only difference was their treatment. Lind gave each pair various daily doses of one of six supposed scurvy cures: a quart of hard cider, 25 drops of vitriol, two spoonfuls of vinegar, a half pint of seawater, two oranges and one lemon, and an “electuary”—a creative mix of garlic, mustard seed, balsam of Peru, dried radish root, and gum myrrh, shaped into a pasty concoction the size of a nutmeg. (Lest that treatment not sound random enough, those sailors also got barley water treated with tamarinds and an occasional laxative dose of cream of tartar.) With the exception of the citrus fruit, which ran out in less than a week, Lind administered the treatments for 14 days.

As the diversity of treatments indicates, Lind’s experiment had no foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, it didn’t take long for one treatment to emerge as better than the others: the men treated with citrus fruits recovered so thoroughly and rapidly that they helped Lind care for the other sailors. Because of this experiment Lind is often given historical credit for recognizing citrus as a definitive cure for scurvy. But that’s not what actually happened.

Instead, when Lind retired from the navy in 1748, he got to work on the first edition of a massive book called A Treatise of the Scurvy: Containing an Inquiry into the Nature, Causes, and Cure, of That Disease Together with a Critical and Chronological View of What Has Been Published on the Subject . True to its sweeping title, the book, which he dedicated to Anson, ended up being some 400 pages long. Lind described his crucial experiment in five paragraphs coming about 200 pages into the book, and condensed the key result into one seriously downplayed sentence: “As I shall have occasion elsewhere to take notice of the effects of other medicines in this disease, I shall here only observe that the results of all my experiments was, that oranges and lemons were the most effectual remedies for this distemper at sea.”

Lind wasn’t trying to bury the lead; he just didn’t recognize the significance of his results. Sure, the oranges and lemons had cured scurvy, but the sailors who got the cider seemed a little better, too. (This is plausible since the unrefined hard cider Lind distributed might have contained a little of the vitamin.) And so rather than dwell on citrus, Lind moved on to describe his own humour-inspired explanation of scurvy: that it was actually a digestive disease caused by blocked sweat glands.

Unfortunately, by the time Lind published the third edition of his book in 1772, he had completely lost sight of what we now consider his most important observations. While Lind did still think lemon juice might be effective against scurvy—he thought it might clear out the blocked sweat glands, especially if mixed with wine and sugar—he included so many disclaimers that his argument was hardly convincing. “I do not mean to say that lemon juice and wine are the only remedy for the scurvy,” he wrote. “This disease, like many others, may be cured by medicines of very different, and opposite qualities to each other, and to that of lemons.”

Nonetheless, progress was gradually made. It had to be: as the size of the world’s navies increased, the problem of scurvy only grew worse, and whichever nation could prevent scurvy would be guaranteed an enormous military advantage.

In 1795 a physician named Gilbert Blane convinced the British Royal Navy to issue some form of lemon juice to its sailors. His order may well have changed the course of history because it allowed Great Britain to successfully defend itself from a Napoleon-led invasion by setting up a blockade of the English Channel. This blockade, during which many ships spent months on the water without coming to port, went on for 20 years—a feat that scurvy would never have allowed.

And yet no matter how many times the connection between scurvy and produce was demonstrated, people kept forgetting it; cures for scurvy continued to be lost and found and lost again. Scurvy appeared among members of the Arctic explorations of the 1820s and miners during the 1848–1850 American Gold Rush. Florence Nightingale reported entire shiploads of cabbage being tossed overboard during the Crimean War of 1853–1856 at the same time that soldiers were perishing from the disease. (The cabbage had been sent specifically to treat scurvy, but thanks to bureaucratic snafus no one had ordered it to be distributed in men’s rations.) The disease plagued prisons, refugee camps, and prisoners of war in the 20th century, and emerged among the babies of wealthy and educated Americans and Europeans in the late 1800s and early 1900s because of pasteurized cow’s milk. (The heat destroyed the vitamin C.)

Nearly a century would pass after the British blockade before anyone truly understood why fresh fruit or cabbage was effective in preventing scurvy. And even today the disease reappears wherever diets and circumstances allow. Doctors at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, recently reported that between 2010 and 2015 they had found at least 30 cases in one of Springfield’s poorest neighborhoods. As is true with all vitamin-deficiency diseases, scurvy can never be eradicated; adequate nutrition is its only prevention and only cure.

Now looking back, it’s tempting to criticize our historical predecessors for not realizing (or remembering) what appears obvious. But history and science are rarely as straightforward as hindsight makes them seem, and the story of vitamins is no exception. The discovery of vitamins was not a moment but a process, a fascinating and often complicated journey in three parts. The first step on this path was the recognition and acceptance of the idea of nutritional-deficiency diseases. And the acceptance of that idea depended on two radical new concepts: that diet can have a direct effect on health and that sickness can be caused not just by the presence of something in food, like a germ or a toxin, but by a substance that is missing.

Catherine Price is a science and health journalist and a former Société de Chimie Industrielle fellow at the Institute.

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Explore > Interests > Adventure > Pirate Vacation, Ahoy! 7 Swashbuckling Destinations in the US and Caribbean

Pirate Vacation, Ahoy! 7 Swashbuckling Destinations in the US and Caribbean

Ahoy, matey! Arrr you looking for a swashbuckling adventure for your next getaway? Then hit the high seas (or skies) and make port in 1 of these 7 destinations for the perfect pirate vacation. Join the crew with your kiddos for a Caribbean pirate ship cruise, complete with water cannons and open bar. Or, discover pirate history in Port Royal, Jamaica and explore the chambers of a real smuggler’s cave. Dive into pirate lore when you see real-life relics and shipwreck treasures at the Pirate Museum in St. Augustine, Florida. Whether it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day or not, hoist the mainsail for these pirate-themed vacations in the US and Caribbean.

Pirate Museum & Rum Smugglers in Nassau, Bahamas

Some of the best Caribbean islands for pirate history, the Bahamas offers plenty of swashbuckling activities and sights for your pirate vacation. At the Pirates of Nassau Museum , walk through a replica pirate ship featuring artifacts recovered from shipwrecks, including intricately engraved swords, pistols, and cannons. Take a boozy stroll with plentiful samples through Nassau’s pirate-plundering and rum-smuggling days on the Rum Runner’s Passage Walking Tour. You can also test your scallywag smarts in a pirate-themed escape room. Can you help Blackbeard evade the grasp of Governor Woodes Rogers and the British Army in under 60 minutes?

Pirate Cruise with Snorkeling in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

The mighty Hispaniola pirate ship is looking for crew members in Punta Cana. Set off for a Caribbean pirate adventure cruise and be ready to walk the plank—with snorkel gear on, of course. Splash into the crystal-clear waters of a natural reef and swim with tropical fish. Then, weigh anchor and steer to Shark Island where X marks the spot of a swimming hole where you can safely swim with sharks and stingrays. Before re-boarding the ship, prepare for clashing blades and explosive effects during a full-scale pirate battle on the beach. Celebrate the victor by dancing with your fellow recruits all the way back to port.

Pirates of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana

You may think of ghost tours and Mardi Gras in the Big Easy, but if not for pirates, New Orleans might not even exist. Join your Jack Sparrow-esque guide for a pirate-themed walking tour of the historic French Quarter. Hear tales about how the French pirate and privateer Jean Lafitte and his elder brother, Pierre, paused their illicit adventures to defend the United States against the British forces in the War of 1812. See the bar where this pirate hero is still said to haunt and peer down the storied Pirate Alley on your New Orleans pirate vacation.

Pirates and Ghosts in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

Sail the seas of history by kayak as you listen to tales about the lives—and afterlives—of the pirates and citizens of St. Thomas. Under the cover of night, dip your paddle into the dark waters of Mangrove Lagoon and glide along the waterways once ruled by buccaneers. Infamous scallywags like Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, and Jean Hamlin frequently prowled the shores of the US Virgin Islands. Try not to get spooked as you hear about their legacy of watchtowers, burning ships, and eerie spirits.

Jolly Roger Pirate Dinner Show & Cruise in Cancun, Mexico

Step aboard the Jolly Roger , an authentic galleon manned by an unruly but friendly crew, for a deluxe pirate dinner cruise and show in Cancun . Feast on gourmet grub from the galley as your ship, sails the Caribbean Sea. Watch out as a pirate battle full of fierce sword fighting, impressive acrobatics, and live music erupts on deck. This all-ages pirate cruise includes a treasure hunt and face painting for the little ones and plenty of rum and dancing the for adults.

Caribbean Pirate History in Port Royal, Jamaica

Gold and wine once flowed through Port Royal, the notorious haven of privateers and pirates raiding Spanish treasure fleets and trading vessels. Walk in the bootprints of famous captains like Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, and Calico Jack on a private Port Royal Heritage tour. Then, explore the caverns of the Green Grotto Cave where smugglers used to hide their booty and James Bond almost became shark food in Live and Let Die .

Ultimate Pirate Vacation in Orlando, Florida

If a pirate’s life is for you, follow your compass to Florida. Of course, you can sing along with Captain Jack Sparrow and his crew on The Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney’s Magic Kingdom . But also, real-life pirates once plied Florida’s shores. Learn all about them at the Pirate and Treasure Museum in St. Augustine . See Blackbeard’s actual blunderbuss, gold from Queen Anne’s Revenge , and the smiling skull of an authentic Jolly Roger flag.

Then, relive the Golden Age of Piracy by boarding a replica Spanish galleon for a spectacle of swashbuckling swordplay, daring stunts, and siren songs accompanied by a 3-course meal at the Pirate’s Dinner Adventure in Orlando. End your day with a family-friendly sunset pirate cruise at Clearwater Beach for the ultimate pirate vacation. If you’re looking for a place drop anchor, the LEGOLAND® Pirate Island Hotel opened in 2020.

Which pirate vacation destination will ye set sail to?

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Pirates off to flying start like last season, hope for better outcome.

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Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz (15) is introduced before the Pirates' home opener baseball game ... [+] against the Baltimore Orioles in Pittsburgh, Friday, April 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Sometimes, you regret your timing as a writer. Early last May, with the Pittsburgh Pirates off to a rousing 20-9 start, I finally decided to give them some ink . They had weathered a broken leg suffered by phenom Oneil Cruz to keep things going for a full month, so I figured it was safe. Sure, I hypothesized in my conclusion to the article that the hot start was likely a mirage, and they were probably going to finish under .500 (they did, at 76-86), but perhaps I should have saved my bullets in the first place. They lost 10 of their next 11 after I published the piece, and would permanently fall under the .500 mark a little over a month later.

Well here we are a year later, and the Bucs are off to another great start. They’ve won nine of their first 12 games, much of it against some stout opposition. The hard-edged, weathered Pirate fan might ask, “Will this year be any different?” It just might be, this time around.

The 2023 Pirates weren’t a bad baseball team, but they lacked material strengths. They finished 13th in the NL in runs scored, and 11th in runs allowed. They were 14th and next to last in home runs. Their offense did have five players with OPS+ marks of 100 or better - 3B Ke’Bryan Hayes, OFs Bryan Reynolds and Jack Suwinski, DH Andrew McCutchen and man-about-town Connor Joe. Of that group, Hayes and Reynolds are the building blocks, Suwinski and Joe are nice complementary players with some upside, and McCutchen is a veteran stabilizer. Reynolds has already had his career year (in 2021) and Hayes may just be on the verge of his.

Starting pitching, as it has been for quite a while in Pittsburgh, was a huge problem. Last season, nearly half of their games were started by pitchers who simply weren’t ready for the task. That is, any game not started by ace Mitch Keller (32 starts), Johan Oviedo (32) and Rich Hill (22 before being dealt to San Diego). Sure, a good chunk of those outings went to young pitchers who might have a future (like Luis Ortiz, Roansy Contreras, Quinn Priester and Bailey Falter), but they certainly weren’t ready in the moment.

So, what have the Pirates done to address those issues in 2024?

THE RETURN OF THE MONSTER

Why you should stop sending texts from your imessage app, apple ipad pro 2024 release date latest news on when it will launch, paris 2024 olympics morocco miss out on historic qualification zambia qualifies.

Oneil Cruz is Back In Black (and Gold). And he looks healthy after his serious injury. Sure, he lost a year of development at the MLB level, and is already 25 now, with some holes remaining in his game. But the talent is real - he destroys the baseball, has a cannon for a throwing arm and appears to have the range to stick at shortstop. Like division-mate Elly De La Cruz, he has some plate discipline shortcomings, but they appear to be less extreme than his Reds’ counterpart. If the Pirates contend for a playoff spot this season, Cruz could be heard from in the MVP race. You heard it here first.

UNSEXY FREE AGENT ADDITIONS, POSITION PLAYER DIVISION

The Pirates didn’t add CF Michael A. Taylor until deep into spring training, but he could wind up having a pronounced impact on the club. Now don’t believe the significant contributions he’s made with the bat in the early going - that’s small sample size theatre. His defense, however, is real and gives the club something they haven’t had in years - a tangible team strength. Reynolds and Suwinski are good enough to have played credibly in center field in the past, and are both now freed up to be above average defensive corner outfielders. Runs prevented count just as much as runs added.

UNSEXY FREE AGENT ADDITIONS, STARTING PITCHER DIVISION

Lefties Marco Gonzales and Martin Perez are not difference-makers. Heck, once the weather warms up and the ball starts carrying, their numbers could take a real hit. What they are, however, are competent major league starting pitchers who will typically keep their club in the ballgame while eating up valuable innings, something that became even more imperative with the loss of Oviedo for the season to Tommy John surgery. The NL Central is arguably the game’s weakest division, and it’s unlikely that any single club is going to run and hide. Teams that both shorten individual games by getting six quality innings from their starters, and consequently shorten the season by stacking such quality starts, have a real chance to be in the hunt at the end.

CALLING ALL KIDS

All of that said, this club isn’t going anywhere without big contributions from newcomers. Enter Jared Jones, one of the game’s best pitching prospects. He wasn’t expect to break camp with the big club, but the 22-year-old simply wouldn’t be denied. It’s pure power stuff, and can be darned near unhittable at times. Now the league might adjust to him before long - he’s had control issues throughout his developmental years - and it will then be on him to make his own adjustments. But this stuff doesn’t grow on trees - he’s must-see TV.

Catcher Henry Davis, after playing right field in his 2023 debut, has moved to what the club hopes is his long-term home. He’s looked the part defensively, but the bat remains slow in coming. Heck, even if he doesn’t hit much, simple consistency at this vital position represents a huge step forward. He’ll be given a long leash to learn on the job at the MLB level. Jared Triolo has been handed the keys to the second base job, and has been a nice addition to this point. He’s already 26 and has limited upside, but he has contributed professional at bats and the whole of his contribution just might exceed the some of its parts.

Oh, and arguably the best pitching prospect in all of baseball - 2023 1st overall draft pick Paul Skenes - is sitting at Triple-A and is likely to be summoned to Pittsburgh at some point this season.

In my recent team true-talent preseason forecast, I envisioned a four-team scrum in the NL Central with the Pirates a bit behind. I think I sold this bunch short. It’s quite possible that the division champion will fall short of 90 wins, and a best-case scenario could place the Bucs around that mark. Pittsburgh is a great baseball town and PNC Park is an absolute gem. The Pirates’ long-suffering fans have been waiting for the return of high-level baseball, and it just might be about to arrive.

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Money latest: The age when the average Briton pays off their mortgage revealed

The average Briton is 61 when they pay off their mortgage - a drop of two years. Meanwhile, Spotify is raising prices again. Read about this and the rest of today's consumer and personal finance news in the Money blog, and leave a comment in the form below.

Thursday 11 April 2024 19:56, UK

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• Spotify to hike subscription price by up to £24 a year
• Minimum income for family visa rises by £10,000
• Britons can now 'work from home' in Italy for a year
• Wendy's creating 400 jobs as part of UK expansion
• The age when the average Briton pays off their mortgage
• 'WTF is going on with the price of olive oil?'
• Could I build a home gym for less than my gym membership?
• Basically...  Tax codes
• Cheap Eats : Great British Menu legend shares ultimate toastie recipe

Ask a question or make a comment

Fake flights and caravans are the two most common items being sold by fraudsters in relation to travel, Lloyds Bank's research has found.

As Britons head online to book deals for the upcoming bank holidays and summer, they have been urged to "remain vigilant", with the average holiday scam victim being conned out of £765.

Amid rising flight costs post-COVID, people have been flocking to social media and other lesser-known websites to secure cheaper deals.

A food delivery company claims to have created an  "unshakeable bag" to avoid spillage in transit.

Bolt, which owns the Bolt Food delivery platform, said its design is based on gyroscope technology and will keep food stable "during the most abrupt movements".

In a post to its website, the firm said it would make the design available to its competitors as it is "too powerful to be owned by any one company".

"We believe everyone should enjoy a perfect meal, regardless of which app they order it from," it said.

Assaulting a shopworker is to be made a separate criminal offence after a government U-turn following pressure from campaigners.

The government previously said "more legislative change" was not needed to tackle the "intolerable violence and abuse" faced by shopworkers, arguing it did not think it was "required or will be most effective".

But Rishi Sunak is now set to announce his government will be amending the Criminal Justice Bill to bring in the new offence.

The drugmaker was on its knees when Sir Pascal Soriot took over in 2012. 

But under his leadership it now does just about everything the UK wants from a business - creating high value-added jobs and developing products that improve people's lives.

The FTSE 100's performance has lagged that of many of its peers, both in the United States and Europe, more or less since the Brexit vote in 2016.

That poor performance has reflected the poor valuation of many UK-listed companies - resulting in numerous foreign takeovers of UK businesses in recent months and years.

It has also led to a scarcity in the number of companies floating on the London Stock Exchange, most notably the  Cambridge-based chip designer ARM Holdings , which last year opted to list in the US instead.

The situation has alarmed the government, which has announced a number of reforms  aimed at raising the UK's attractiveness .

An imminent shareholder vote on Sir Pascal's pay makes a particularly interesting test case because few would dispute that he has been the most outstanding FTSE 100 chief executive of his generation.

This rise could take his potential earnings to £18.5m this year - which critics say is excessive.

Read my full piece here ...

England's average house price has risen by £103,000 over the last decade, while the average annual wage has risen by £7,734.

But some areas have seen homeownership affordability decline more than others... 

The London borough of Barking and Dagenham has seen the most significant fall, according to moving platform Getamover. 

The platform found the area has seen house prices more than double to £380,000 in the last 10 years - but wages have only risen by £2,182. 

Hillingdon in West London took the second spot, with the average property shooting up by £230,000 to £495,000, while the average income increased by just £143. 

While London remains the most unaffordable region, the East Midlands has also seen a notable fall. 

Oadby and Wigston in Leicestershire ranked fifth in the table, with the average house price increasing by £129,000 and the median annual income growing by £2,644.   

Gedling ranks sixth among the areas of England where the affordability of buying a home has declined most. 

The Nottinghamshire region has seen house prices soar by 84.8% to £231,000, while the average income has risen by just 13.11% to £33,454. 

You can see how other areas fared in the table below...

Rishi Sunak's post-Brexit rules for foreign workers are getting tough press in Italy this week - with claims they could mark the end of Italian waiters in London.

April saw the minimum salary requirement for a skilled worker visa increase from £26,200 to £38,700 - a near 50% rise as the government tries to reduce immigration.

Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica published an article on its site headlined "Italians in London, the long goodbye" after the new rule was brought in this month.

There were an estimated 342,000 Italians living in the UK in 2021, according to the latest Office for National Statistics census data.

La Repubblica said the new rule change would lead to the "end of the story" of Italy's "ancient roots" in the capital, which was founded by the Romans in 43 AD.

Separately, Italian journalist Antonio Polito wrote in the Corriere della Sera newspaper that the new salary for skilled workers was "an amount that no young novice can realistically earn".

"Thus London gives up one of its great assets, the fact of being an offshore and cosmopolitan city," he said.

Mr Sunak's post-Brexit rule change has worried hospitality bosses who are still struggling to get to grips with a post-COVID reality and rising costs. 

Conor Sheridan, founder of Nory and Mad Egg restaurant chain, previously told the Money blog that roughly 14% of his 15,000 UK employee base were on working visas that could be affected.

Trade body UKHospitality also said the changes would "further shrink the talent pool that the entire economy will be recruiting from".

As the migration law came in, Home Secretary James Cleverly said it was "time to turn off the taps and end the flow of cheap workers from abroad".

"We are refocusing our immigration system to prioritise the brightest and best who have the skills our economy needs, while reducing overall numbers," he said.

Several of the UK's biggest supermarkets closed their gender pay gap in the last year - while Morrisons saw the biggest rise, figures show.

Ocado and Lidl reduced their gap by the largest amounts in 2023-24 compared to the previous year, while Tesco, Asda, Aldi, Co-op, Iceland and Waitrose owner John Lewis also saw a reduction.

The data comes from the government's gender pay gap service and states the difference in hourly rates of pay. 

In contrast to other big-name brands, Morrisons saw its mean pay gap widen to 12.5% from 7.6%. M&S also saw a slight increase from 12.5% to 12.6%.

The mean figure gives the best overall view of the gender pay gap but includes extreme values which could skew the average.

Of the 11 biggest UK supermarkets, Co-op has the largest pay gap with 13.2%, followed by M&S and Morrisons.

An M&S spokesperson said: "We're committed to driving equal opportunities and making M&S a great place to work for women. Encouragingly our median pay gap has decreased, and women now make up more than 50% of our UK store management population, but we know there is more to do. 

"We're making progress with the launch of new initiatives, talent programmes, and policies, including our flexible working offer – Worklife, a Job Share Finder, and our industry-leading family leave offer."

A spokesperson for Co-op said: "We are committed to treating our colleague member owners fairly, and this includes driving equitable outcomes for female colleagues. We've seen a significant reduction in our gender pay gap since we started to report data in 2017, and this year's data shows further progress towards closing it.

"It's important to reiterate that we don't pay people differently based on their gender at Co-op. The gender pay gap is caused by us having fewer females in leadership role, where salaries are higher.

"Our focus on improving representation remains, as we know this is one of the key drivers causing the gender pay gap. Today, 40% of our leadership population are female - this is not enough, which is why we’ve launched a series of development programmes and have a coaching and mentoring offer to support women with career progression.

"We know there’s still much to do in this space and will hold ourselves to account and continue to strive for gender equality."

Morrisons has also been contacted for comment.

Every Thursday we look at a different savings option, explain the pros and cons, and reveal the best deals on the market (see table below for that).  This week we're talking about the best notice accounts. Savings Champion founder Anna Bowes  says this...

As with the rest of the savings market, the top notice account rates have started to fall. However, there are stalwarts like the Investec 90-day notice account that are holding steady and as a result offering savers an opportunity to earn a little more, while not having to tie up their cash for too long.

A relatively unused aspect of the savings market, notice accounts offer a bit of a halfway house, with the best rates available generally paying more than the top easy access rates, but will more flexibility of access than a fixed term bond.

Just as it sounds, these savings accounts require you to give notice in order to access your money without a penalty. The usual notice period ranges from 30 to 120 days, although there are some accounts on the market that require six months or even a year's notice.

By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire , business reporter

Another record month for Heathrow. Last month was the busiest ever March for the UK's biggest airport, the second record-breaking month in a row. 

It was also the busiest Easter weekend as Good Friday became the busiest ever direct departure day, when 118,000 people began their journey at the airport. 

It shows, despite cost of living pressures, lots of Britons were going on holiday.

More good news for Heathrow came earlier this week as planned strike action by 600 border force officers was called off to allow for negotiations in its dispute over working patterns. 

Oil prices are still high, hanging around $90. A barrel of Brent crude oil, the benchmark for oil prices, costs $90.66. The last time prices were this high was in the wake of the 7 October attacks and fears of conflict spreading throughout the Middle East. 

On the currency front, £1 buys $1.2538 and €1.1678.

How old is the average Briton when they buy their first home, or finish paying their mortgage, or retire?

These are some of the questions answered in a "Journeying Through Life" data dump from the Office for National Statistics.

Here are some of the key takeaways...

Home ownership - including the one life event that's happening earlier

People are buying homes later in life, perhaps unsurprisingly given how house prices have risen in the last decade or so.

In 2022, more than half of people owned their own home (either with a mortgage or outright) by the age of 36. 

That's a significant increase on 2004's figures - which showed the average age for home ownership was 32. 

This graph shows what proportion of people own homes at what age.

It isn't all doom and gloom on the homes front, however, with the age at which people own their home outright (ie mortgage paid off) dropping from 63 (in 2004) to 61 in 2020. 

This is pretty much the only life event happening earlier, however.

Retiring later

Again, this probably won't come as a huge surprise, but people are retiring later. 

The age where more than half of people were retired increased from 64 in 2011 to 66 in 2021. ​

There has been a bigger increase in average retirement age for women (from 61 years in 2011, to 66 years in 2021) than for men (from 65 in 2011 to 66 in 2021). 

The ONS says this is because the state pension age for women was increased from 60 to 66 during this time to match men.

Gender pay gap shrinking but still present

The latest data shows that men are still, on the whole, being paid more than women - although the gender pay gap is shown to be shrinking. 

For all employees, the gender pay gap was 14% in 2023 - compared with 20% in 2013.

Despite the gap shrinking, this graph shows that men's hourly wages are higher than women's at nearly all ages. 

The grey shaded area represents the pay gap. 

Another part of the data shows that males start work a touch earlier than women - with half of males in full-time employment by the age of 23 (compared with females at 24) in 2021. 

That data could be explained by the fact that more women attend university - some 319,000 females compared with 285,000 males in 2022.  

Moving out, marrying and having children

The age at which young people move out of their family homes is increasing, too.

In 2011, half of people were not living with their parents at the age of 21 - compared with 24 in 2022. 

More men live with their parents than women, with 61% of adults living at home in 2021 were male.

When it comes to having children, the average age at which women have their first baby has risen to 29.

That's up from an average of just 23 in 1970. 

And finally, marriage.

The median age at first marriage has been steadily increasing since the 1960s. 

For opposite sex couples married in 2020, the median age was 32 years for men and 30 years for women. For those entering into same-sex marriage, the median age was older, at 36 years for men and 32 years for women.

As well as getting married older, fewer people are getting married. In 2019, marriage rates had fallen to their lowest on record. For men, there were 18.6 marriages per 1,000 never-married men; for women, there were 17.2 marriages per 1,000 never-married women.

Spotify has announced it is hiking its subscription prices by up to £24 a year.

It is the second time in less than a year that the music streaming giant has increased its prices.

Here's how the prices will change...

Individual: £11.99 a month (up from £10.99 a month)  

Duo: £16.99 a month (up from £14.99 a month)  

Family: £19.99 a month (up from £17.99 a month) 

When will the change kick in?

The subscription price will change from May and if you are an existing customer Spotify will email you and give you one-month's notice of the change.

If you are on a free trial you will pay the old price for one month once your trial ends.

A Spotify spokesperson told Sky News: "So that we can keep innovating and delivering value to fans, the music industry, and creators on our platform, we occasionally update our prices. 

"We've begun communicating with existing subscribers in the UK to explain what this means for their account."

American burger chain Wendy's will be recruiting for over 400 job roles as part of its expansion across the UK.

The chain returned to the UK in 2021 after a 20-year break and has since opened just over 30 sites, including drive-throughs in Colchester, Peterborough, Derby and Brampton Hut.

But the chain, which was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1969, plans to open a further nine sites this year in Liverpool, Middlesbrough, and a second location in Sheffield.

New locations will include Liverpool, Middlesbrough and a second site in Sheffield.

Wendy's franchisee GH Burgers will open a first restaurant in Wood Green, London, this year.

There will also be restaurants in Southend-on-Sea, Colchester, Cambridge and Newcastle.

Michael Clarke, UK managing director for the Wendy's Company, told The Caterer : "We've seen great momentum in building Wendy's fandom in the UK, and the love and excitement for this iconic brand grows stronger with each new restaurant opening."

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